Beautifying Excel

  • Thread starter Thread starter Astley Le Jasper
  • Start date Start date
A

Astley Le Jasper

I have created an application which outputs it's information into
Excel so the client can manipulate the information easily. However,
they've moved the goalposts a bit and now want it to 'look cool'.

I usually work with websites so that usually wouldn't be a problem.
However, could anyone point me in the direction of any resources on
making Excel ... erm ... sexy! I appreciate that I can probably change
the fonts and colours, maybe include graphs and images here and there,
but I wondered if there were any galleries anywhere of good examples.
Specifically he wants an interface to filter the information and
things.

To be honest, I like my spreadsheets simple and elegant. Most of the
attempts I've seen at jazzing up excel end in the creation of some
real munters.

Thanks

ALJ
 
I have created an application which outputs it's information into
Excel so the client can manipulate the information easily. However,
they've moved the goalposts a bit and now want it to 'look cool'.

I usually work with websites so that usually wouldn't be a problem.
However, could anyone point me in the direction of any resources on
making Excel ... erm ... sexy! I appreciate that I can probably change
the fonts and colours, maybe include graphs and images here and there,
but I wondered if there were any galleries anywhere of good examples.
Specifically he wants an interface to filter the information and
things.

To be honest, I like my spreadsheets simple and elegant. Most of the
attempts I've seen at jazzing up excel end in the creation of some
real munters.
Click to expand...

Agreed. :) Suggest you persuade the client that their requirements will cost
them extra and actually devalue the product.ie ... this aint a good idea. :)
 
Unfortunately Bruce, that is a tough job to make that argument. Too many
people believe that you need lots of colour, lots of gizmos, in order to be
convincing, people who are too lazy to think about the information. This is
as true of senior management inn corporations as it is of most of the
general public.
 
Unfortunately Bruce, that is a tough job to make that argument. Too many
people believe that you need lots of colour, lots of gizmos, in order to be
convincing, people who are too lazy to think about the information. This is
as true of senior management inn corporations as it is of most of the
general public.
Click to expand...

That is true. Interestingly, many/most of Tufte's examples of 'bad'
visualisations come from business. Pie charts. A bar chart with 2 (two)
values shown (yes, really !).
My experience has been that higher levels of management (particularly in
business - check out company annual reports for example) like pretty
pictures.
Oh ... and those looking to mislead too. We had a prime minister many years
ago that was very fond of showing charts. He did things like show how much
growth there had been using a chart ... and there was (obviously), as one
bar was twice the other. Then it would be discovered that the actual numbers
were 1004 and 1008 ... and he'd started the bars at 1000 to leave out the
unimportant bits ! :) :)

Give me good old numbers any day over bad charts and diagrams.
 
You are so right, too many times I have seen a chart that would be far
better presented as a table.

BTW, I have seen the pie within a pie, a true monster.
 
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